Thoughts on the Total War Remaster

[Hirtius]

When I first played RTW, it was magical. It was the game that got me into the series, and led me to this point. There is some mad nostalgia behind that game. However, one day I stopped. I moved on to the newer total war games. What brought me back was EB1, which I loved. I struggled to get EB2 to work on my computer, and EB1 ran so well. However, as soon as I figured out EB2 and devoted time to that, I stopped EB1. There's a reason for that. While I was initially excited for the remaster (especially since it's feral, they usually have done a good job with Mac stuff), it wore away almost instantly after I realized how little will be changed. There are some neat changes like improved graphics and individual soldiers, but the changes seem to be pretty basic in order to maintain the spirit of the original game.

That's the problem. The original game is garbage, even compared to the rest of the series (which are almost all bad). The battle system can be decent when used well. However, in the vanilla game it is used in perhaps the worst way it can be. Battles are over far too quickly. I never have to make strategic positioning or anything besides throw all of my units at one, and have the enemy break in a chain reaction. Hell, I just use all cavalry in vanilla. They're often cheaper in upkeep for some factions, and infinitely more useful besides sieges. The game is unbelievably unbalanced, and battles are so quick that it's not even enjoyable. Most mods don't even fix this. EB1 does ok, but the battles are still faster than I'd like.

As others have noted, the battle system (misused in the base game, and not super outstanding at its best) is probably the highest point of the game. I haven't ever seen an economy done right in that game, and that's a problem that exacerbates its already awful recruitment system (something which few total wars are even decent on). Remember EB1? Starting out was so boring and such a pain. If your faction had a few settlements, you could probably do stuff. However, factions with one settlement, you either had to rush neighboring rebel settlements immediately or wait decades before you could even do anything besides "end turn". The early game restricted you to basic levy units. Even if it gave you the barracks to recruit something better, your economy limited you to those levies. And that's EB1, perhaps one of the most polished mods for RTW. However, the worst of all mechanics of RTW was diplomacy. The remastered will try to improve it, but I think it's probably broken beyond repair. Diplomacy is next to worthless in RTW. In almost all cases, you maybe get trade rights and map information. But if you have any borders, you're likely to end up at war pretty quickly. You spend so much time at war that you don't realize how sparse the empire management part of the game actually is (in the base game, but even in many mods). It lives up to the name "Total War", but I don't find this to be an enjoyable experience. I know other people do, which is what has kept this game loved for so long.

As you might imagine, I'm not looking forward to this. It would take massive overhauls to make it palatable to me, and by that point it wouldn't be a remaster. I should be neutral to it, but I guess it's just tiring to see such a bad game kept alive so long by nostalgia. That time and energy could have been used towards something unique or good. But then it probably wouldn't be a Total War game. I've played most of the games, and my personal assessment is that EB2 is probably the best of Total War. The actual developers lose out to some modders on a now ancient game constantly. The devs (CA, feral just does the porting) have never tried to fix many of the underlying problems (i.e. economy, recruitment, diplomacy) that have plagued the series since its inception. Maybe a part of me just hopes for something better.

[Lusitanio]

From what I've seen, it's actually exciting to see this old game getting a remaster, it's been so many years since I first started playing the original Rome, it's wonderful to see it getting remastered.

I honestly wait to see more of it.

[Draken2007]

Already bought it. After I saw gameplay from it, I was sold. Can't wait to go back to it since it was my first Total War game. And the original barely works on my system. But ofcourse, what I'm really looking forward towards is the mods for it. That's going to be awesome.

[Draken2007]

When I first played RTW, it was magical. It was the game that got me into the series, and led me to this point. There is some mad nostalgia behind that game. However, one day I stopped. I moved on to the newer total war games. What brought me back was EB1, which I loved. I struggled to get EB2 to work on my computer, and EB1 ran so well. However, as soon as I figured out EB2 and devoted time to that, I stopped EB1. There's a reason for that. While I was initially excited for the remaster (especially since it's feral, they usually have done a good job with Mac stuff), it wore away almost instantly after I realized how little will be changed. There are some neat changes like improved graphics and individual soldiers, but the changes seem to be pretty basic in order to maintain the spirit of the original game.

That's the problem. The original game is garbage, even compared to the rest of the series (which are almost all bad). The battle system can be decent when used well. However, in the vanilla game it is used in perhaps the worst way it can be. Battles are over far too quickly. I never have to make strategic positioning or anything besides throw all of my units at one, and have the enemy break in a chain reaction. Hell, I just use all cavalry in vanilla. They're often cheaper in upkeep for some factions, and infinitely more useful besides sieges. The game is unbelievably unbalanced, and battles are so quick that it's not even enjoyable. Most mods don't even fix this. EB1 does ok, but the battles are still faster than I'd like.

As others have noted, the battle system (misused in the base game, and not super outstanding at its best) is probably the highest point of the game. I haven't ever seen an economy done right in that game, and that's a problem that exacerbates its already awful recruitment system (something which few total wars even decent on). Remember EB1? Starting out was so boring and such a pain. If your faction had a few settlements, you could probably do stuff. However, factions with one settlement, you either had to rush neighboring rebel settlements immediately or wait decades before you could even do anything besides "end turn". The early game restricted you to basic levy units. Even if it gave you the barracks to recruit something better, your economy limited you to those levies. And that's EB1, perhaps one of the most polished mods for RTW. However, the worst of all mechanics of RTW was diplomacy. The remastered will try to improve it, but I think it's probably broken beyond repair. Diplomacy is next to worthless in RTW. In almost all cases, you maybe get trade rights and map information. But if you have any borders, you're likely to end up at war pretty quickly. You spend so much time at war that you don't realize how sparse the empire management part of the game actually is (in the base game, but even in many mods). It lives up to the name "Total War", but I don't find this to be an enjoyable experience. I know other people do, which is what has kept this game loved for so long.

As you might imagine, I'm not looking forward to this. It would take massive overhauls to make it palatable to me, and by that point it wouldn't be a remaster. I should be neutral to it, but I guess it's just tiring to see such a bad game kept alive so long by nostalgia. That time and energy could have been used towards something unique or good. But then it probably wouldn't be a Total War game. I've played most of the games, and my personal assessment is that EB2 is probably the best of Total War. The actual developers lose out to some modders on a now ancient game constantly. The devs (CA, feral just does the porting) have never tried to fix many of the underlying problems (i.e. economy, recruitment, diplomacy) that have plagued the series since its inception. Maybe a part of me just hopes for something better.

Bruh. If you hate total war games that much, why are you here? Just go play paradox games, seems more your style.

[Hirtius]

Bruh. If you hate total war games that much, why are you here? Just go play paradox games, seems more your style.

Isn't it obvious? I'm here because I love EB2. I don't hate the concept of Total War, it's bad execution. EB2 does a lot of stuff right that mainline total war doesn't, and even many other mods. I already have beef with CA for their recent DLC policy, Paradox is too rich for my blood.

And if you're saying that because it's a salty rant, it won't stop you from enjoying it. I'm clearly in the minority on this, because CA (and now Feral as well) keeps raking in the big bucks.

[Iaius Statius Laurentius]

I would expect that given the amount of work that's been put in on EB2, there would be little interest in stopping it or moving to the remaster.

That said, I have to wonder what the engine difference is. The remaster seems to be incorporating some aspects of Medieval 2 (unit variation, faction rankings, merchants) so I have to wonder if the remaster was somehow based on a version of the medieval 2 codebase skinned to use Rome 1 assets, or what. But it's probably some brand new hybrid thing, since there's little sign of other Medieval 2 changes like castles, recruitment pools, etc. Probably likely everything would have to be redone from scratch, which is a huge lift.

[Agrippa19]

I think RTW battles are far superior to M2TW, units are more responsive, less sluggish and animations don't all feel like slow motion. While vanilla's units were unbalanced, grand mods like EB and RS3 really fixed this and have amazing battles.

The weakness was it's campaign, specifically diplomacy and it looks like this has been addressed in the Remastered version. There's an introduced 'Reputation' system and the role of trade has been expanded with a UI to highlight resources only. Overall I would disagree with some of the opinions here that the UI is bad, I actually quite like it's layout. Of course I'll have to play it first before I truly make up my mind. The marble appearance I quite dislike though, it reminds me of Imperator Rome which got panned and had to redecorate it's UI for the latest patch.

There's still some clarity needed to say if the campaign map can be modded. If it's just a true remaster I don't see why it couldn't be modded to have a larger more detailed map, but I can only hope so. Vanilla is too basic.

I'm quite excited about RTW remastered. Maybe it's because it was my first TW game, but to this day I always prefer playing RTW mods campaigns. The trait system in RTW and M2TW as well as characters are much better than modern TW's. So with updated graphics, RTW battles rebalanced through mods, updated diplomacy I can see it being a very fun game as well as steam workshop support and stability issues addressed (I think patching the exe will no longer be necessary for stability issues).

[Jakkka123]

The thing I want to know is whether some of the hardcoded stuff has been changed, like the maximum number of factions, buildings or settlements. If the limits have stayed the same, I'm not really sure I'm really that hyped

[Hellenikon]

A lot of things were hardcoded in RTW, like max number of factions, regions, unit entries and models. Another terrible thing was how experience worked, so you had these gold chevroned units who could chew through whole armies due to insane bonuses. Difficulty also gave the AI direct stat bonuses in battle, while M2TW was the only CA game to use indirect advantages (fatigue) instead.
It looks pretty, even if the 2004 animations clash with the upgraded model/textures, and I'm sure there are improvements to diplomacy. Still I think this game will mostly be a multiplayer battle game, due to a combination of tactical and fluid battles with modern controls. There has to be a lot of changes made to the game (modding or included in the remaster) to make it stand up to later games in the series. RTW was also my first TW game, and the jump to 3D tactical battles was huge, but I wouldn't want to play that game again, where things like manpower don't even exist. Compare the hellenistic factions in EB2 to EB1, and how significant the colony system is in making the gameplay both more challenging and historical.

[Big_guy_4_you]

This is my issue with it. The only thing that was better about RTW was the battle engine.

Yes and no, RTW had that AWFUL unit Exp and upgrade system where Chevrons upgraded attack, defense and even missile attack, leading to disgustingly OP armies in the late game. M2TW got rid of lethality and swapping to a secondary at will sure but fixed the problems of experience, guard mode missile attack exploits and controls better/more smoothly.

[Big_guy_4_you]

The fact that units don't respond instantly (particularly cavalry) in M2TW seems to be an intentional choice by CA, and one I don't care about too much either way

[Calypze]

I am for the most part not terribly interested in the vanilla TW games, at least when it comes to RTW and M2TW. The various mods available for these games are just so much better! Without the mods I would have stopped playing RTW and M2TW over a decade ago.

[Marvzilla]

I loved RTW when it came out but now ? Eh. Also seems to diminish the possibility of CA ever giving greenlight on working on the source code or whatever it was that would have made faction and unit limits a thing of the past, as a MTW 2 seems likely.

[Nathanial28]

I'm pretty optimistic because of steam workshop support from day 1. I'll bet there will be some UI and campaign map reverting mods coming out pretty fast after release.

I sincerely doubt the campaign map will be moddable anywhere near RTW or M2TW. I will bet it will be like all the newer TWs.

[Hellenikon]

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/co...ef_source=link

- Increased Faction cap and Region cap.
It looks like some of the hardcoded limits might be changed, and they're aware of modders. Still, don't get too excited until the game releases, as most of the pre-release info is just to get people to buy.

[Hirtius]

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/co...ef_source=link

- Increased Faction cap and Region cap.
It looks like some of the hardcoded limits might be changed, and they're aware of modders. Still, don't get too excited until the game releases, as most of the pre-release info is just to get people to buy.

That might make it more interesting. Hopefully whatever changes they make to diplomacy are pretty good, because otherwise those extra factions will just make things more chaotic than they already were.

[sgz]

I'm personally very excited for RTW remastered. The campaign map looks great. The UI changes seem excellent and some of the subtle tweaks to AI and diplomacy discussed by Feral sound promising. But the greatest boon is the modding support w removal of faction limits etc. After wasting lots of time on Rome II and Attila I'm really looking forward to going back to the old Classic. If only EB2 or similar could be available to play on that version from the outset it'd be a long held dream come true.

[Sint]

Really you think the oversaturated campaign map and the Rome 2 UI look great?

[Slaytaninc]

I doubt they'd explicitly lie, but I don't see lifting the faction cap as necessarily bringing it above what Medieval 2 did. Maybe the engine modding guys have a good idea of what can be done when you have the source code but I don't find it any guarantee. I was wrong in thinking that they wouldn't improve anything like that but I still think it's best to preach caution.

[sgz]

Really you think the oversaturated campaign map and the Rome 2 UI look great?

"oversaturated" is very much a matter of opinion. To me the old Rome TW campaign map is very dull and bland. I reckon the new one toned down ~ 10% would be ideal.